I always heard that the '59s were prized for their PAFs [0] and the aged mahogany, but I've only ever heard one on a record and never played one myself. We've come a long way since 1959 in terms of neck dimensions/radii and modern CNCs can carve out pretty much any shape, rather reliably. Seems weird to prize since Gibson necks are horrible. But hey, guitarists are weird people.
They're collectable and valuable because of the association with famous players in the classic rock era, and the rarity of examples. A perfect copy of the Mona Lisa would be worth a few $, not a few milion $, even if it were indistinguishable to the viewer.
Many guitarists fetishize the 59 Les Paul because of the sound. The trick is that '59 Les Paul might not sound any different objectively, but the musician knows they are playing an iconic and rare instrument. This can make the musician play better than usual. Guitarists often attribute this to the "mojo" in the guitar; the trick is the mojo is in the player's belief.
On one hand, I think the 59 Les Paul would be valuable to people who collect those sorts of rare things regardless of whether they actually intend to play it.
On the other hand, I could see that for some successful performers, the purchase could be a sound financial investment if fans are just a bit more excited about hearing their favorite musician playing a rare instrument live than they would otherwise be. One might be able to recover the purchase price of the instrument through increased ticket sales.
The mojo is always in the player, and buying more expensive instruments won't create it if it's not there.
I once turned up to a pub session and saw this hairy-looking person with a complete PoS no-name guitar. It had holes in the body and looked like it was held together with tape.
Even so. Surprisingly good sound. Sweet playing.
Complete opposite to the guitar nerds who turn up with gleaming prestige instruments they fumble around on.
I found out afterwards he'd been in a household name UK pop band in the late 60s.
Grunge movement in the 90s was founded on this premise, which picked it up from the hardcore/punk scenes of earlier times. Kurt would turn up in a cardigan and jazzmaster from a thrift store and rock out.
[edit] I think it might have been a Fender Jaguar actually, it looked terrible!
I hear you, it's crazy how good a $500 guitar is these days.
When I started playing, an entry level guitar was pretty bad. That's not the case any longer.
My theory of the progression of manufacturing for some product goes like this:
stage 1: figure out how to make a thing
stage 2: figure out how to make the thing well
stage 3: figure out how to make the thing cheaply
stage 4: figure out how to make the thing well, cheaply
I'd say that for electric guitars, the '59 Les Paul was at the early end of stage 2, and sometime in the last decade or so we've gradually transitioned into stage 4.
One might argue that there's also a stage 5: figure out how to make the thing well and cheap, but customized to a specific user's preferences. Right now, that's the main reason why one would have an electric guitar custom made by a luthier rather than buy a factory-made instrument. (I like to mess around with just-intonation-based tuning systems, and have ended up building or modifying a lot of instruments simply because guitars in the tunings I want simply aren't for sale.)
I was about to mention Kiesel but you beat me to it. I'd argue that they're the real American guitar company (Gibson & Fender are has beens). Affordable made to order instruments that are ergonomic, high quality, and innovative.
Yeah, it's amazing what you can have made specifically for you for the same price or less than an American-made Fender or Gibson if you go with a small-volume manufacturer or an independent luthier.
It's incredible the quality you can get in that price range. I bought a PRS SE Custom 24 for $700 and it is like a museum piece compared to what $500-700 would have bought when I was starting out 20 years ago. Absolutely awesome.
I recently bought a $150 crappy guitar (Squire Bullet Stratocaster) and it's honestly pretty excellent. It stays in tune, there are no playability issues, and it sounds good once you have your amp settings dialed in. Electric guitars are really simple and undemanding instruments and it doesn't take a lot to make them well. The particular model I bought was manufactured in Indonesia.
It's true that I don't think you could find a decent acoustic guitar for anywhere near that price. I recently paid $500 for my first acoustic because I saw a clear difference in quality between the one I selected (Taylor GS Mini) and the competition in the $200-$400 price range.
When itcomes to guitars Indonesia is the new Korea just like Korea was the new Japan.
I have one of the last Korean Ibanezes(2005) before production of mid and low end models was almost entirely moved to Indonesia, and in 2006 the Korean ones were much better in comparison.
Nowadays, after almost 15 years the Indonesian made Ibanezes caught up.
I’m fairly certain China is the new Indonesia. My $100 Fender DG-7 was made in Indonesia 17 years ago, anything in that price range even inflation adjusted would be made in China now.
I think the quality is still hit or miss. I have a Chinese Epiphone LP Standard from 2017 or so, and it is a fine guitar, but this is after leveling frets and replacing the nut, bridge and pickups. Before that it would not stay in tune, buzzed at several frets, sounded dull both acoustically and through pickups and especially the "hotch" bridge pickup was a wonderful combination of muddy and thin. If you are thinking "but that's how a Les Paul sounds", you have no idea how muddy and thin. To be honest, the "59" neck pickup wasn't bad, but Tonerider that replaced it is better.
Another guitar I use regularly is a Squier Bullet Strat. It sounds kind of like Strat and it doesn't buzz at frets because of super high action, but it won't stay in tune, the ends frets are sharp and so are saddle adjustment screws that are a couple of millimeters too long and the icing on the cake is that basically anything played on second string makes something under pickguard rattle unless you press it at a certain spot. If you have to ask, it's audible through pickups and kills sustain.
I think you can find equally bad USA-made instruments at several times of the price if you look hard enough, but I wouldn't call these good instruments.
A Squier Affinity Stratocaster was my first electric guitar. This was more than 20 years ago, so may be the quality has gone down recently, but there was really nothing wrong with it mechanically. The action was perfect (and fairly low), all the fret ends were well-dressed, the neck was perfect and it had great sustain. I didn't get any fret buzz even with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys. It stayed in tune once I learned how to wind new strings properly and stretch them out, etc. The pickups were shit, though.
Sounds like you have Japan-made Squier. I haven't seen one in person, but they do have a good reputation and probably cost now more than when they were new. The current cheapest Squiers are completely different guitars, and apparently even these have good and bad ones and I one of the worst. There are people who claim that you can get a good guitar if you buy a pile of Harley Bentons or Squiers, keep the best one and return the rest. My Epiphone was apparently a customer return.
Japanese Squiers are great. My uncle, who is a fantastic guitarist and has all kinds of amazing guitars, often still gigs on his late 80s Squier Strat.
Fender owns Squire so it will be essentially the same guitar but made from cheaper wood and cheaper components.
Back in the 80s I bought a Charvel (Japanese) as I couldn't afford a Jackson (US made) - the cheaper Floyd Rose tremolo was disappointing but it was fine to play. Eventually switched to an Ibanez RG 570 which was super nice to play.
If "essentially the same" means "subcontracted for the company that owns the name and copyright to headstock shape". Original Fenders have already changed so much that the company sells replicas of their old products, and on the other hand there's nothing that prevents competitors (including G+L, the company Leo Fender himself started after selling the more famous one) making the exact same guitar if they change the shape just enough that it can be recognized as different brand.
Essentially the same in that an electric guitar is a few pieces of wood with some hardware and electronics. How well those pieces are put together and the quality and specs of each component makes the difference.
The type and grade of wood used will also affect the string vibration and what overtone frequencies are refected back into the strings. It takes 20-40 years to mature a mahogany tree so while your boutique makers will spend the time to source the perfect timber you won't get that for a mass produced guitar.
There are guitarists who swear by their guitar tech who will adjust everything from bridge height, neck tension, even reseat and glue the neck before they pick it up the first time. I pulled the neck off my old Charvel more than once to get a lower, more even string height along the fretboard. Second time I filed back a few frets that had nicks or weren't quite evenly set and sanded the epoxy coating off the neck and replaced with shellac for a smoother raw wood feel.
Ok, I misunderstood that you meant there's something special in Squier that would make it more Fender-like than a G+L or any of the almost-clones that don't have any direct relation to the original manufacturers.
My Squier Bullet made in mid 2019 is the best guitar I have ever played.
It sounds more than okay (which is subjective). The body is light but without any head dive present. The neck is a dream and the fretwork is impeccable.
The tuners are bad but not awful. That's the only bad thing I can say about it.
In this case there are no drop in replacements unfortunately. You'd have to drill holes. But I'm okay with keeping these stock regardless, they're fine if you tune up.
But personally I'm just not a fan of the shorter scale lengths and thick gloss finishes on most Gibsons, I'm personally a fan of thinner maple necks and will sand down the finish myself if I have to, but everyone's different
Musicians are the ultimate consumers. They spend a lot of money on their style and substance, and are generally easy to get recurring revenues from, if you can push the right buttons.
(Disclaimer: worked in the MI business for decades. It always fills me with a sense of wonder, the things people will buy to make themselves sound different from others while also conforming to industry expectations...)
Because that link may not work forever - although I suspect it will be there for a while - the summary is: two Telecaster guitars painted to look like copies of the Teles Jimmy Page played in Led Zeppelin. Signed by Jimmy Page. £44,999.
I'd love to know what the shop markup is on those, or if they're on sale-or-return.
Synthesizers have a similar scene. An official Keith Emerson Moog Modular Replica reissue a few years ago was being sold for >$100k. (Note to those under 40: Keith Emerson was a famous/notorious rock keyboardist in the 1970s.)
Musical Instrument markup is still pretty astonishing outside the 'cocktail set' shenanigans, especially if your eyes have been bleeding from the situation in the tech scene.
It doesn't have to be a 'classic' synthesiser to command extraordinary markup/profit.
There is a reason why the current synthesiser market is vibrant and active and virulent - and nobody is playing well with each other, there are more competing platforms to do the same thing than many other spaces.
That reason is, you can spend $100 on a BOM-per-product, and sell it for 5 figures, year after year. That $3000 synth workstation, at scale, can add up to a lot of real, good old fashioned atom-based commercialisation.
> I'd love to know what the shop markup is on those, or if they're on sale-or-return.
I'd say they were pretty expensive to produce:
> And these 2 pieces were masterfully built by Paul Waller at the Fender Custom Shop under the discerning eye of Page. They are exact re-creations of his beloved guitars!
Bloody hell. I have a Nile Rodgers Custom Strat that Paul Waller was involved in but certainly didn't make himself. And less than a tenth of the price of these two. Is there really a significant difference in provenance between a Custom Shop guitar and a Master Built?
There is a distinction in the market between professionals and hobbyists, but then most of the MI market is borne on the fact that there are about 2 - 10 million new musician students coming into the scene every year - a portion will become hobbyists, and a very, very small percentage will become 'professionals', by many variant degrees of definition of the word professional - i.e. gets paid, has money to spend on music stuff.
Musicians can be pro or hobbyist, doesn't matter to the instrument maker unless its important the end user feels special. Thus, the higher prices for 'special' instruments.
Music, though, doesn't need to be high quality in order to be experienced. Even low quality instruments can sound amazing in the hands of a musician - hobbyist or otherwise.
A lot of professional musicians aren’t paid much, so it’s not really surprising that hobbyists (who can work at all ranges of pay) sometimes have better gear.
My brother teaches guitar and he frequently sees people who’ve just started playing show up for lessons with ludicrously expensive instruments. And hey, if they enjoy it, more power to them.
Jimmy Page is known to have shaved down is #1 Les Paul neck to be incredibly slim [1]. It make sense because as much as I like Les Pauls, I never really liked the neck profile of mine. It's worth mentioning that there are tons of different neck profiles for Les Pauls throughout the ages, too, so there isn't just one "Les Paul" neck.
Given that they're offering a $59k reward for their missing ledger I'm curious if anybody is going to try to make a fake ledger instead of a fake guitar.
Would not be surprised; they found a forgery factory somewhere in the boondocks a while ago that also forged collectibles like posters (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23784998).
Of course, if it's about the contents then a forgery would be impossible to make.
I'm a double bassist, and with a tiny handful of exceptions, the value of a bass depends on its quality. Maybe because basses are so big and cumbersome, there are fewer collectors and investors driving prices. And old basses are usually modernized with no regrets if they are not playable by today's standards.
Bassists are great because you guys don't get bogged down with traditionalism like us guitarists. Active pickups? No problem. Solid state amp? No problem.
I remember about 20 years ago one of our PM's was also a semi pro musician (violin in a Jazz group) - commenting that his second best bow was worth £1200-1500.
But he was a fairly high end player as his group had a residency at the Balmoral during the Edinburgh festival
I've been extremely fortunate to get away with using carbon fiber bows, both for my cello and bass. Then again I'm not a pro-level player. And most of my arco work is actually arco soloing in a jazz context. Also practicing. Jazz players are typically encouraged to practice with the bow, as it brings out flaws in left hand technique.
Paying for the history of an item instead of its practical properties is incomprehensible to me. It is peak human ridiculousness. Just like a lot of "art".
Art connects us with history. If we don't have a conscious stream going back to the Greek mathematicians such as Archimedes and Erastosthenes, how do we know they existed? In this case we actually don't have a nice conscious stream because of a little event called the fall of Rome and the dark ages. But the artifacts are as real a connection to early history as my school books with my writing are to my own early history, or yours.
Anything connecting us directly to the Renaissance is inherently valuable, as is the Romantic era, or early industrial history. I value van Gogh for it's place in history, and for the fact that anything in the painting has to be from that date. If you do some kind of verification, you should see that the green pigment has to be the one that they used at that time, and may possibly look a bit faded to a more yellowy colour. Red pigment will probably be somewhat poisonous and blue may well be from a particular plant with a particular name. (IANAAH.)
Going to the Renaissance is of course more complicated than going to van Gogh, going to the dark ages is more so, and even more so going back to Greece. The same holds for any civilisations such as the Maya, ancient China, Mesopotamia, and so forth. We are connected to the San only through very few artifacts and often they are too generic to know. We are but limited to paintings on overhanging rock faces.
The money value is another argument, but if I had the money, I would buy a piece of history for $1m in the same way that I would buy a Fazioli or a Bosendorfer (the one with the octave lower, of course) for some $200k, new or old.
Oh but you did it, you do it, and you will continue to do it through out your life, even if you're unconscious of it.
Brands have history, and we're emotionally tied to it. It's how we work, it's how part of our decision making process works and it's quite efficient.
Even if your argument will be : "NONSENSE! I only buy reliable items that perform their practical duties with their practical properties." I'm pretty sure those items are tied to a brand that worked hard to own the title of having reliable items that perform how they are supposed to perform.
Collectibles is just another form of having a piece of that. Can be fueled by nostalgia, or something practical like a specific sound or texture, could be a story you relate to, etc.
No one is safe from that. We are getting manipulated everywhere and might end up buying an item (washing machine, car...) that's objectively a worse fit for us. But isn't this something bad? Something we should avoid, rather than encourage? People throwing money at collectors item are relishing this.
But while writing this I did some introspection and realized that I would also buy all the name & brand based expensive stuff there is if I had the money for it. So my negative feelings are probably just jealousy at this (from my perspective) frivolous waste of money. So, nevermind. (-;
>We are getting manipulated everywhere and might end up buying an item (washing machine, car...) that's objectively a worse fit for us. But isn't this something bad?
From my experience, it's bad if exploited but there's little benefits of lying to/tricking people and defraud their expectations.
In fact I'm pretty sure you (and I, and everyone) have plenty of brands that destroyed our trust in them and we would NEVER buy from them again - either because you had bad customer service, or they wasted your time to deliver a bad product/experience... so it's not a good practice to manipulate and lie to people, it will only work in the short term, but it does happen.
We don't do well we betrayal.
But for example, for fine art collection, people can do it simply because they like and artist body of work and see value in it, others because it would fit their collection (because they might be trying to get a slice of a specific artistic movement), others because they believe it's where art is moving to (represents a form a progress), other because their art dealer told them it's a good investment and the artist is growing in specific circles... I've been trying to help an artist with marketing, and it's not easy at all.
It may sound like non-sense, but fine art should be more present in our lives, and surround us, even if it's for something as simple as "I like this paint"!
It's not just the history. It's the same thing with any collectables - first edition books, baseball cards, Star Wars toys...
Some person (or group of persons) crafted this thing.
Some small subset of the original purchasers valued the thing enough to preserve it.
In almost any situation, given freedom from financial constraints and all other factors being equal, anybody is going to choose the original thing over the reproduction.
No. But I don't understand why a perfectly replicated painting by an art student is worth less than the aged original, I don't understand why new music instruments that sound better or equal are worth less than their antique counterparts.
No one can tell the difference, besides by using techniques like a ledger or scientific analysis. Both can be easily tricked by anyone involved. This means your perception of those items is strongly colored by completely external "facts" (rather, assumptions based on your trust into experts, at best). We could show the countless tourists that want to see her a replicated Mona Lisa and no one would ever be able to tell. Yet if we'd tell them there'd be at least a small outroar.
All of this is really off putting. Reminds me of placebo. And being emotionally invested in sports teams.
> But I don't understand why a perfectly replicated painting by an art student is worth less than the aged original
I would suggest that this is because you place no value on the act of creation, the creative genius that pulls the artifact out of thin air into the material world. The view you are describing is purely utilitarian.
The counterfeiter is stealing that creative value, without which the artifact they are manufacturing isn’t possible.
Finally a topic I feel very confident on - I've flipped many hundred guitars, and owned a bunch of "true" vintage ones. Fender Strats from 1957 - 1963, Gibson Les Pauls from 1957 - 1960 (though no "true" bursts, and probably not something I'm going to own unless I hit it big...), and tried a bunch of very, very expensive vintage guitars.
I've seen a bunch of articles the past years, in websites like WSJ, where they've started to ride the vintage guitars/amps "investment" wagon. I know the vintage community hates this notion - because for every Joe B that actually plays the instruments, there are probably 10 collectors that just stow away the instruments in safe storage.
Furthermore, you need to either be incredibly experienced yourself, or find some person that really, really knows their sh!t. Fakes can of course be a huge problem, especially if they're high-end replicas from over the years.
But IMO the biggest risk would be pieces that simply aren't original. There's quite a difference between an original burst, and some conversion burst. Both only one of them will yield extraordinary good ROI.
>But IMO the biggest risk would be pieces that simply aren't original. There's quite a difference between an original burst, and some conversion burst. Both only one of them will yield extraordinary good ROI.
This is what I was going to ask you: what about the modifications?
One quite famous LP is the one from Jimmy Page, and I think that when he bought it either it came with a wider neck, or he changed it after getting it - one thing is sure, it wasn't the original neck. Plus he had many other mods. This would devalue a lot the guitar no?
If that happens, and it belonged to a super star, then it will get the value as an item from the super star, and not the item itself?
It's just odd the perceived value of collectibles - some people value the story behind items, others love the story of the item itself, others do it because they think it's a good investment. But when it comes to guitars, despite the history of Gibson, I'm pretty sure any '59 LP that reached 2020 must have a hell of a story to tell, with mods or no mods - unless it stood in a former studio player attic getting dust.
Mods, on very old guitars, are almost unavoidable. That's why you see original parts going for thousands of dollars on Ebay etc.
Often times a pickups has been re-wound, pots have been swapped out, or what not. If you own a bone stock burst these days, you'll take it to luthiers that specialize on this kind of stuff - but back in the 70s, people didn't really give it much thought. Sure, they were valuable and collectible already back then, but not to the degree we see today - so people just modded / repaired them without much thought.
If some celeb has owned a guitar, then there's some inherent "bonus" on that - or at least, the value won't drop.
Now, if it's some regular Burst with no celeb history, that has new pickups and tuners - then that's probably going to take a good hit on the price.
For those that enjoy stories about the early days of electric guitar, I recommend picking up the book "The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll" by Ian S. Port. It's a great story about the first electric guitars and their creators.
I learned about Joe Bonamassa when assembling a collection of songs that represented each of the great players. I went with Blues Deluxe for Joe. Here he is on that Les Paul:
I met George Wilson, Toolmaker of Williamsburg. He was old when I met him in the 90's and I don't know if he is still around, but I hope so. He was a luthier and made some amazing guitars, and I got to play some of them at his house. He also liked to make Gretsch copies. I am not familiar with the models, but one I got to play was a large hollow body, perhaps it was known as a Country Gentleman. Gretsch guitars are highly collectable, and expensive, which belies the fact that the vintage models were often not made well, and play terribly. George's copy was perfect right down to the serial number and stamp on the volume and tone knobs. The only way to know it was a copy is that no Gretsch was ever made so well, and the fact that George's guitar would have 3-4 times the market value than the original vintage guitar he copied. I was naive then and I think George took advantage of me. I had a flawless blonde 1989 ES-335 dot, and he talked me into trading him for it for a Bedrock amp that he wanted to dump, an AC-30 copy. He sold that guitar in less than 2 weeks on consignment and got considerably more than I paid for it new a couple years earlier. I still have that amp, loaned to a studio, and it has gotten work on many records over the years. It always sounded better than any original Vox AC-30, though still faithful to the original sound. But that amp was never worth nearly as much as that 335 I have been missing ever since, I doubt even half as much.
Edit: honestly, I first thought "hey, that would be a cool name", then I wrote the comment above, then I googled it and found out that yes, there is actually a Finnish metal band founded in 1984 with this name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratovarius But yeah, I guess the name is too good to not be already taken...
An experienced player could tell by the feel and sound -- if they know what to look for. The problem is the guitars are so rare and expensive that the intersection of {skilled enough} with {has experience with enough originals} is not huge. They mention Joe Bonamassa as one example.
> An experienced player could tell by the feel and sound
This claim has been made about other instruments, for example people have claimed a Stradivarius violin can be identified by a professional who knows what to look for. When tested in a blind study, the professionals preferred newer instruments more often than not. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/04/elite-violinists-fai...
Yes, that is part of the surprising result. There is some difference and the article & study explains that difference across several experiments, if you read it. Since the claim is that the old famous violins are higher quality, the expected preference - if experts could reliably identify the old instruments - should be in favor of the old instruments. But the experiments found that while experts could see & feel some difference between new and old instruments, they could not reliably identify which was which, and tended to prefer the new instruments. Both experiments, about preference and ability to distinguish, are damaging to the narrative that experts who know what they’re looking for can reliably identify the old ones and that the old ones were higher quality.
In a totally different domain, back in the university I participated in a similar experiment with bulk lagers, where we both rated and tried to recognize the beers. It turned out that there was a clear ranking that almost everyone agreed on, but nobody could recognize the brand. One participant even gave her favourite brand the lowest grade.
I think the same thing happens with most honest wine studies. The truth is there is a huge range of quality in wine and most people agree when blind, but the quality is completely uncorrelated to price.
The interesting thing about those lagers is that many people believe you can't distinguish between them or even that they are the same drink sold under different labels. If that was the case, the scores should have been random but they weren't.
The quality of the replicas and originals both varied. It is reasonably well acknowledged now that at least by the end of the "lawsuit era" (in 1977 Gibson sued the distributor of Ibanez who was the main brand behind them) the Japanese copies were higher quality than the official product.
There is vale in the name though and particularly when they were still producing a quality product.
I'm lucky enough to own a Japanese Ibanez from that era. Even though it was abused badly by previous owners, it's one of the best instruments I've ever owned.
I'm skeptical of people's ability to self-report things that affect them in subtle and not-entirely-conscious ways.
For instance, take a major scale played by a monophonic synthesizer of some kind. I know that a major scale in 12-tone equal temperament differs substantially from a major scale in just intonation. (The thirds and sixths are all off in various directions by about 13-15 cents.) I know that if I play such an instrument in equal temperament I'll get bored/annoyed with it sooner. At the same time, if I listen to a major scale in equal temperament and just intonation, I probably won't be able to tell you which one is which even though I know they're quite different. (In a chord the difference is much more obvious.)
Agreed. If extending the domain from guitars to beers or wines, then how about to cars? Can anyone tell the difference between a Veyron and a Ford F100? I hope so.
Hint: the Ford has a gun rack in the rear window;the Bugatti has a V-16.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAF_(pickup)